Dan Brown's best-selling novel, "The Da Vinci Code," has sold over 85 million copies. The work catapulted the author into a truly stratospheric level in the book publishing world. He has become so popular an author that his book, "The Lost Symbol", sold over one million copies in the first 24 hours it hit the streets.
"The Lost Symbol" follows a Harvard scholar named Robert Langdon. He receives a cryptic invitation to the nation's Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Awaiting him in the middle of the rotunda is a severed hand bearing strange tattoos, and a finger pointing toward the inner dome of the building.
The novel follows Langdon as he becomes increasingly more entrenched in trying to solve Masonic codes, symbols and various clues in order to avert some kind of terrorist trigger or what the novel calls "a national security crisis of unimaginable proportions."
Even though the novel's narrative covers one 24-hour period, escalating action, adventure and suspense hold listeners captive throughout what seems like a much longer span of time. The novel is set among and within buildings such as the Capitol Building, a Masonic temple, National Archives, The Library of Congress and the Washington Monument.
Brown does not disappoint his millions of fans. He gives them the ancient portals, the cryptic symbols, and codes set in art masterpieces as well as in architectural landmarks of a great and beautiful city. Instead of Rome or Paris, this time he makes them on a grotesque tour of a more familiar city, Washington, D.C., from an entirely new perspective. Those who know the city may never see it again in the same way.
Dan Brown grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire, the son of a mathematics professor and a church organist. He developed a strong interest in science and religion and brings all these elements together in his novels. He is best known for writing thriller fiction and among his works are "Digital Fortress," "Angels and Demons," "Deception Point," and "The Da Vinci Code."